Thursday, May 21, 2009

It's tough to imagine how the GOP establishment could get any more ridiculous these days, but its reaction to President Obama's plan to close Guantanamo pretty much steers the crazy ship into uncharted territory. If you believe the Republicans' line of thinking, they're taking a Horatius-like stand to prevent the criminal masterminds currently at Gitmo -- who they just know have been plotting and scheming to destroy America, even while behind bars -- from ever setting foot on U.S. soil and being able to hatch their nefarious plans. The Republicans claim that bringing terrorist suspects into the country -- into (gasp!) your neighborhood -- would put all of our lives in jeopardy. Never mind that the Supermax facility these people would likely be transferred to already holds the country's most dangerous murderers, rapists and thieves (and one previously convicted terrorist).

It's of course a fantasy of the most outlandish kind, more than likely borne from watching too many "conservative-themed movies," to imagine that the Guantanamo detainees are arch-villains who will be busted out of a heavily-armed prison convoy in spectacular fashion by Magneto and Pyro as soon as they're brought to the mainland. But that's not stopping the Republicans from cultivating this nonsense into a series of obstructionist talking points. And what's worse, it's not stopping spineless frump Harry Reid -- the almost literal definition of "my own worst enemy" -- from buying into it and needlessly capitulating to a Republican party that's disorganized, marginalized and, quite possibly, insane.

13 comments:

Some years ago, three detainees at Gitmo hung themselves.Newt Gingrich and Cully Stimson both took the position that the suicides were "asymetric warfare" - that the dead men had hung themselves in order to attack America.Newt even said something like, 'There may be people there who hate us so much that we can never let them out.'

Obama is so wrong for this. I mean, if he hadn't cut funding for our "Weapon X" program I might support this. But without Wolverine or some similar individual around to protect us, you know that these terrorists are going to take over with their mind control rays, super disintegrators and armies of robot drones.

What's baffling to me is that when we opened Gitmo there wasn't a plan in place for handling the detainees after their trials or the "war" was over. I guess it's not surprising seeing how the Bush admin never planned anything with any foresight, including the war, but seriously? You just lock people up -- suspected terrorists or not -- with NO THOUGHT on what we do with them after? Unbelievable.

Oh, and Weapon X was a Canadian operation, not U.S. (It was actually Weapon 10; Weapon 1 was the U.S. program, which produced Captain America.) Logan was a Captain in the Canadian Army. That's why he was Code Name: The Wolverine in Alpha Flight, Canada's nationally funded superhero team, before he quit to join the X-Men.

Well, at least that's the way it REALLY went, I haven't seen the movie, I've heard it messed things up really badly.

Well, it wouldn't make sense to send the most technologically advanced fighting force in the world after a bunch of angry, poor goat farmers, now would it. No, we have to save our 'elite fighting forces' for true threats - like Cobra or the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.

Every time I hear about this, I think back to the Daily Show and the brain-eating guy.

But one angle I have yet to see be addressed: people don't make prison rape jokes for nothing. You think those guys hate America now, lets see how sore (no pun intended) they are when some 300 lb steam roller with legs named Hamhock decides to make some time with them.

Wave the geekness proudly Izar. You are right. I haven't been able to keep up with comics for ages, but I am indeed aware that Wolverine is Canadian. My brain was still stuck on the movies, which did make the program a U.S.-based one. Or at least RUN by U.S. Shadow Ops folks. I was unclear if the facility in the movie was in the U.S. or Canada.

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